Masters of the Sea

005

"Sejoon, snap out of it." Sangchul snapped his fingers in front of Sejoon's dazed, semi-sober, mostly drunk face.

"Huh?"

Sangchul sighed and sat down across from him. "You've been in a whole different world of your own ever since Hye Ra went missing. How long are you intending to stay like that?" 

Baekho and Baekyu nodded in agreement.

Sejoon had been blaming himself for Hye Ra's disappearance, and the fact that she could possibly have fallen to her death from the cliff scared him even more. When they were kids, he had sworn to protect her for her entire life, yet he had single-handedly been responsible for pushing her towards her death. How could he have been so stupid to actually think that the king wanted to kill her?

Go Yeon was right. I'm rash and impulsive, and Hye Ra's life is in danger because I never bothered to think things through.

He reached for another swig of soju but Baekyu had already placed the the bottle as far away from him as possible. Not that there was much left inside it—he had already drunk four-fifths of the alcohol in that bottle and it was barely noon.

"Sorry for punching you," Sejoon mumbled as he looked at Sangchul. There seemed to be five Sangchuls sitting in front of him somehow and each was wearing a bruise on his left cheek. He blinked, and Sangchul suddenly multiplied into ten. His entire world was swimming now—a kaleidoscope of Sanchuls.

The other three men looked at each other questioningly, wondering what on earth to do with their friend.

Sangchul was the one who came up with the solution. He left the room for a couple of minutes, returning with a huge basin of water. Before the twins could say anything, he had already emptied the entire basin of water over Sejoon's head. Sejoon leapt up in alarm, the sensation of the freezing cold water drenching his skin giving him the shock of his life.

"What the hell!" he yelled. All of a sudden, he was wide awake.

"Good morning, Sejoon." Sangchul grinned, chucking the empty basin down on the ground. Baekho and Baekyu were chuckling to themselves at the sorry sight of Sejoon with his hair sticking to his face and his clothes completely soaked. They had to admit that Sangchul's solution was highly effective.

"God! What did you do that for?" Sejoon yelled as he stared down at his wet clothes, wiping the remnants of water droplets off his face.

"It's been a while, Oh Sejoon. Are you finally back with us? Sheesh you really need to stop moping around like a lovelorn fool, drowning your sorrows in alcohol. You're totally ruining the reputation of the Black Knights, you know that? Anyway we never found any sign of Hye Ra anywhere, which means she could still well be alive. Why are you acting like she's gone forever?"

At the mention of Hye Ra's name, Sejoon fell back into his state of melancholy. The others wouldn't understand how he felt because they didn't know Hye Ra like he did. To most of the other knights, she was just another one of the charges that they had been assigned to protect by order of the king. It could have been anyone. To him, it was different. She was the only girl he had ever truly cared about. If Hye Ra would let him, he would have gladly stayed by her side for the rest of her life, but he knew that she wouldn't. In her eyes, she could only see Go Yeon—never him.

Baekho threw Sangchul a dirty look for mentioning Hye Ra's name again, just when Sejoon had woken up from his drunken stupor. "Where's Go Yeon and the others?" Baekho asked, trying to change the subject to take Sejoon's mind off things.

"Go Yeon's gone off shooting arrows again. I swear he's not human. How could he go off shooting arrows when he has such a beautiful bride waiting for him back in her chambers? Seriously, sometimes I wonder if the guy is straight," Baekyu remarked. Ever since the search party returned, Go Yeon had immediately resumed combat training without missing a beat. As far as they were aware, he still hadn't made a trip back to the crown princess's chambers to even take one look at her. It was as though he never got married and the girl didn't exist.